This invention generally relates to call detail records from which traffic measurements can be derived for a telecommunication network. The invention is more specifically directed to the correlation of calling party and called party information in which at least one of the calling and called parties are subscribers in a wireless telecommunications network.
Call detail records as currently implemented by a switch or an adjunct associated with the switch can be used to measure traffic patterns. These records consider a call origination and a call termination (delivery) as independent events for mobile station (MS) calls, i.e. calls involving a wireless subscriber. That is, the call detail record for an originating MS call and the corresponding call detail record for the terminating MS of the same call are not correlated. Such call detail records can be used to derive some information as to traffic conditions and for the usage of a feature by the party associated with the specific call record.
Many new features have been introduced to subscribers in wireless voice/data systems by various service providers. Some features may be supported by only a specific service provider while other features have been sufficiently standardized and are available from most service providers. Although the currently available call detail records permit some traffic and feature information to be determined, such records are not able to provide additional information that would be helpful to service providers in maintaining and enhancing services and features offered to wireless subscribers. For example, it would be helpful for a service provider to know, during a given time interval, the percentage of calls that are: MS to MS, MS to a wireline subscriber, originating and terminating within the service provider's network, originating within the service provider's network and terminating outside of it, originating outside of the service provider's network and terminating in it. Even for calls totally within the service provider's network, it would be helpful to know the number of MS to MS calls in which both the originating and terminating parties utilized a specific call feature in order to determine future services to offer and existing services to enhance. To derive such additional information, information about the originating party and terminating party of the same call must be correlated. Thus, there exists a need for an improved method for collecting call related data that permits correlation of the data collected for the originating party and the terminating party of the same call.